It came as a surprise, back in July, when Michelle Boone, then-commissioner of the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, let it slip via an e-mail to friends that she’d be leaving her job in a week to become head of programming at Navy Pier.
“It was a really exciting opportunity,” Boone said in a phone interview last week. “I like tackling big ideas, so this notion of coming on board to build an arts and culture program at the pier, something that has never existed before, was too compelling to turn down,” she added.
And we don’t know who will own the hotel. According to a pier spokesman, the details on that “are not final.”
“But to come for works actually presented and produced by the pier will be a new experience,” Boone says. She’ll collaborate with Chicago arts groups and artists to develop a year-round “season” of free events, and the pier will be “positioned as a cultural destination,” she says. A tourist attraction, yes, but also, “like Millennium Park, a place for high-quality engagement with the arts.” v
